All You Did Was Save My Life
by hey-torch
Summary: There was a promise she felt radiating from the glassy surface. Promising freedom from everything that kept her broken. That night the temptation was too powerful to walk away from. OneShot


**A/N: I know I've got plenty going already on my plate, but after watching the last episode I was then struck with inspiration for this. It's just a oneshot take on 7x21. Everything I've**

**read that has to do with it kinda has a universal theme within it and I realized that this was something different that I haven't seen on site yet and, to me anyway, seems like something**

**that very well could happen. Anyway, I really wanted to get this up before the finale and with my computer shot to (censored) we can all thank my totally awesome brother for allowing me to use his working computer to give this to you. THANK YOU BRO! Regardless it may be a bit before the rest of my stories get their coming updates.**

**Hope you guys like this.**

**Disclaimer: Still not mine despite my many efforts. **

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_"All you did was save my life_

_Pulled me out of that flatline_

_Put the heartbeat back inside_

_I'm not dying_

_All you did was get me through_

_I owe every breath to you_

_Heart is so unparalyzed_

_All you did was save my life."_

_ 'All You Did Was Save My Life'_

-Our Lady Peace

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It was quiet.

All around her was silence. The house was dark and lifeless. She heard Nathan leave with her sister not long ago, leaving just her and her sleeping child in the large house.

Only moments ago her voice had ended; leaving her twenty-first voicemail on her mother's phone. Her dead mother.

The first time she called her had been right after the funeral. She hadn't left any message or said anything then, she just needed to hear her mom's voice; even if it was just a recording. They wanted her to talk to somebody, she was talking to somebody. Somebody that maybe on some level, on some plane of existence, could hear her. Maybe not. Hugging herself with the arms of the gray sweatshirt, she stared at the still surface of the pool. As unmoving as the large house behind her; it showed no more life than anything else. She thought about the last time she actually went to one of the therapy sessions Nathan had pleaded for her to do.

Before she started skipping them, the therapist told her to work her way through it she had to focus on the good things. The things she still had, things that mattered to her because, even though it didn't seem like it, there were still things that mattered. He told her to take small steps:

Think of one thing she cared about, no matter how trivial it was and focus on it when things felt hopeless. If she liked flowers, think about flowers. That was his example...flowers.

Whatever.

She tried to use the obvious answer, the things that should be enough reason to get past the suffocating dark cloud she couldn't escape.

Nathan and Jamie.

Conjuring up their names and faces in her mind, she realized in an awful moment, that nothing changed. Not in her mind or heart or existence at all. All she felt was a new disgust with herself. She didn't even know how much time she then spent pulling up every memory she had with the two most important people in her life. Dates and weddings and birthdays and holidays. Nathan reaching the NBA and achieving his biggest dream, Jamie's first day of school; his genuine smile and wondrous outlook on every new day.

But recalling those things, playing them through her mind like film, Haley was unable to connect to any of it. Like she was watching scenes from someone else's home movies; she saw it all happening but couldn't feel any of it. She knew she'd been happy. She knew she'd laughed and smiled and loved. But when she tried to remember what those moments felt like she got nothing.

It only deepened her despair.

She felt lost and nothing helped. Nothing would help. There was nothing that touched her like it should. There was nothing she could feel or hear or see that wasn't cold and dark. Like an abyss that she'd fallen into; endless and always deeper and deeper without a bottom to ever hit.

At first she'd hidden it. Plastering on smiles she practiced in the mirror and playing the role she was expected to. All the while waiting for the moments when she could steal away and fall apart in secret.

But then she stopped caring to hide it. Stop caring to protect her loved ones from the pain simply opening her eyes brought on. One day it was just too much to pretend anymore and the brave face was dropped and forgotten.

Nathan tried to reach her. Patient and sweet and loving. But she didn't allow it. Every arm he held out to pull her up, she rejected. All she wanted was for him to stop. Stop telling her it was ok; that _she_ would be ok.

Brooke tried. The girl who had been her anchor during their senior year when her life was a mess created of Haley's own doing. But her encouraging words and gestures only pushed Haley further into the cracked being she'd become.

She wanted to be left alone. She wanted them to realize that pretty words and promises wouldn't fix it; wouldn't fix her. Nothing could fix her.

She was broken.

It the car with her husband earlier that day, he asked her for one thing she still loved. Haley knew what he wanted to hear; she wished, she really really wished, she could say it. There was a voice in her head that said the word:

_"You."_

But she ignored it and the word went unsaid. Quiet and weak, she knew what that voice was. That voice in her head that, at first had been a scream shouting at her, was Haley. The Haley that Nathan married and gave birth to Jamie. The voice of the girl from those memories that scolded her every time she needlessly snapped at her son and pulled away from her husband's touch and ignored phone calls.

The immensity of the darkness in her heart had beaten that voice down to a whisper and would soon snuff it out and away completely. That Haley was gone.

The wife, mother, friend, sister...she didn't exist anymore. She didn't live anymore. All that was left was the pained shell of a woman whose perpetual spiral brought her there where she stood. The pool's surface clear as glass.

Some days ago, the days were all one long struggle to continue breathing anymore she couldn't distinguish them, the pool came to her mind when she tried to think of that one good thing. Seemingly a mere fixture on the property with no true influence, it somehow became something more. Something that called her back to it over and over to it's edge. There was a promise she felt radiating from the glassy surface. Promising freedom from everything that kept her broken. Promising peace. That night, that night of all nights, the temptation was too powerful to walk away from.

Closing her eyes, Haley spread her arms and took that final step forward.

Immediately surrounded by the cool water that embraced every part of her with welcoming arms, she kept her body unmoving. Weighed down by her submerged clothes and her heavy heart, she felt the bottom in less than a second. Reaching it, she let out a generous portion of the breath she'd been holding. She opened her eyes, watching through the blur of chlorine as the bubble of life floated up and broke free. Every little bubble that escaped and raced upwards was another little piece of her flying away from all of it.

She closed her eyes once more, releasing a little more air, not a sound but her own smothered heartbeat in her ears, she imagined that it was what it must have felt like before she'd been born. This was what it felt like to be safe inside her; to be a part of her.

_Mom_

Another group of small bubbles pour from her lips.

Her chest started to burn, begging for oxygen she refused it as the pressure became more powerful. Using all her focus, denying her body it's natural reflexes of survival instincts. Forcing it to remain where it was. Going against everything that was natural. Her throat began to hurt, too, now screaming it's protest. But she refused to give in to the demands being made. She could control just this one thing in her life now and she would. It was the only way to stop it all.

And it was working. She could feel it. Her head, even underwater, began feeling light. She wondered if it would soon become too light to be anchored by her body and simply float up on it's own. Ridiculous. That wouldn't happen. She'd simply pass out and the rest would happen while she slept.

Before the darkness completely took her over, a sound thundered the peaceful silence she'd encased herself in. She knew, without opening her eyes and looking, what it was. Someone breaking the surface; she'd been caught. Nathan was going to stop her and force her to continue living in her daily pit that continuously switched between feeling nothing and feeling nothing but pain until she was so shattered even he would agree she was a lost cause.

Splashing continued to disrupt the once calm waters and she opened her eyes to see what was taking so long for her inevitable return to her living death.

Looking up, she felt an electric shock hit her straight in the heart. The last bit of air she'd kept in her lungs escaped in a muffled underwater scream.

"Jamie!"

Her voice inhibited by the liquid surrounding her, she reflexively gasped in fear, swallowing a painful burst of water when she did so. The boy's small figure struggled against the surface of the water and she saw right away he was in his pajamas and not wearing his water wings. Haley felt a deep rooted terror fill her veins, knowing her son couldn't quite swim without them just yet. She kicked her foot off the floor, propelling herself from the wall towards where Jamie's disorganized flailing limbs cut through the water desperately.

The efforts to reach him right away told her the effects her actions had on her as her muscles felt like lead and her half drowned body was too tired to move as it should. The denim of her jeans and the thick sweatshirt adding to the opposition, she prayed the black blurs on the edge of her vision didn't spread to her entire consciousness before she could get to him.

Moving became harder with each inch and she inadvertently took in more water. The voice again, came to her.

_No! No! No!_ Haley, the real Haley screamed with a fury like never before. _Not Jamie! Not my baby. Not because of me. _

Somehow, she felt her arms grab hold around the boy and soon broke through the top of the pool. His hands clung tightly around her neck as soon as he felt his mother and he began coughing once his head was back above water. Haley, too, automatically erupted in a fit; coughing and gagging and choking. Forcing herself to get to the edge, she first lifted Jamie to the concrete. Once he was up there, he laid down, taking deep breaths to tell his lungs it was alright again.

Haley remained in the pool, her hands on the edge fingers white as they pressed into the cement as she continued to cough roughly, her body attempting to empty her lungs. Her stomach lurched and she gasped for air feeling the liquid being expelled from her. Burning it's way up her throat and exiting where it's presence threatened harm. Chest on fire and head spinning, she leaned her forehead on the lip of the pool and felt how easily she could pass out in that very second and realized how very very close she'd gotten to being a statistic of success in the attempt.

She felt, then, the slick wetness of Jamie's small hands grab one of her cold ones from the edge where it was braced. Lifting her head, she saw the fear in her child's eyes as he tightened his dripping jaw with effort.

He was trying to pull her out.

Relishing for a split second in the new sensation that rose in her chest, Haley than gathered her remaining strength and lifted her heavy, heavy body on to the ledge as well. The moment she got on the hard ground, her soaked son threw himself against her. Small arms wrapped tight around her as he crushed into her chest where her still aching lungs heaved while tears fell from both sets of eyes; lost among their already wet faces.

She held him, too, with everything she could manage as she took panting breaths of night air. She didn't know what to say; if there was anything she could say to make up for this. So she stayed silent, hugging him. Allowing herself to dwell on the new realization that, in the boys embrace, she felt a true warmth despite their soaked bodies. Something she hadn't felt in some time.

"You scared me." his small voice stated tearily as she held him close. It broke her heart that she had done that to him.

"I'm so sorry." she apologized, surprised by how much speaking hurt and how hoarse her voice sounded. She pulled back to look at him and ran a hand over his wet head, swiping his hair back. "You scared me right back. What were you thinking?"

"I heard the splash and came outside. I didn't want to scare you, Mama." he cried to her. "Daddy says when he's not home I'm the man. I was just...I was trying to save you...like Daddy does."

A look came over his face and she saw what it was right away. Guilt. He felt guilty because he thought he failed. More tears fell from his eyes when he spoke again. "I love you, Mama."

"I love you too, baby." she pulled him close again. Her own tears slipping out as she genuinely felt the truth in the words she spoke to her son.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

She squeezed him a little tighter at the words her child said to her.

"You did, Jamie." she told him. "You saved me."

**alrighty, so there's my take on it. Everything I read about this episode showed nathan jumping in and saving her, which is well and good and probably what will happen. But this just came to me that jamie would try if he thought she was in trouble and in that effect, save her from herself. Tell me what you think!**


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